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Buster's Bombardiers
A Group of ex-Air Force Ghouls led by their charismatic leader Buster. Emerging from their hardened hangars in 2237 the Bombardiers found the world a bigoted, hateful place with most people all too willing to kill them because they were "zombie freaks" so they fortified their base, Mitchel AFB and fixed up their old B-52 Stratofortress and armed with a massive supply of high explosives in the base's magazine promptly began to bomb the NYC wasteland as revenge for the bigotry they faced from its inhabitants. Meanwhile training an army of refugee mutants to some day take over the wasteland and keep it for themselves, all while looking pretty badass in aviators. Foundation It is easy to understand in the Post-apocalyptic madness that followed the nuclear holocaust why so much hatred would be put against the mutants of the wasteland. In most folks eyes, they're not normal, they're horrible abominations, and the living manifestation of humanity's vast series of mistakes that brought the world to what it is now. Yet this hatred at the same time is inexcusable, anyone who has spent half a minute with a ghoul and even some super mutants know that they (unless they've gone feral) are no different from humans, at least on the outside. Yet this thought hardly crosses some people's minds, the most extreme of bigots have seen too many old zombie flicks and light up a ghoul whenever they're come across. Even going as far to shoot them in the head, just like old zombies. Most others view ghouls as disgusting things, treating them as a disease. This is the kind of world a ghoul or any mutant must live in, a world of bigotry and for the people of the New York City Wasteland, the beliefs of a few would affect them all. A long time ago a great force called the US Air Force ruled the skies. They could fly across whole oceans in planes and bombers some of which were basically invisible, others could move faster than they could be heard. So it only makes sense that the US Air Force bases would become targets for anyone hoping to cripple the US, which is exactly what happened to Mitchel Air Base. The base had once served as a starting point for fighter aircraft to go and fight in the Second World War, they'd fly here and get crated up for shipping. The Air Force also ran maritime patrols out of this base searching for these things called U-boats along the coast. Well as time went on the Air Force no longer had a use for such a base, and it was handed off to a new group called the Strategic Air Command or SAC, it used the base for a jump off pint for bombers carrying nukes to Europe or to the USSR. So based here was at first B-29 Super Fortresses, then the B-47s then the massive and deadly B-52. This massive tank of a bomber came about in the 1950s and had stayed in service since then, one known as The Detroit Express ''was built back in the old days and through the years was retrofitted to be up to standards, even at one point going through a whole hull overhaul to match modern designs but keeping the same name and frame. It came into the possession of its supposedly final bomber crew in 2055, but due to heating tensions between the US, China and USSR the Express was kept in service being retrofitted once again. However, the next crew coming along in 2076 was to be its eternal crew. Its crew of six crewmen were given the plane on December 26, 2076, and told to be ready for operations at a moments noticed. SAC foreseeing the threat of a tactical strike on their base to neutralize some of the US' strike capability became apparent. The hangars along the runway were hardened with extra concrete and a layer of steel in the middle, there were panic rooms where canned food was stored in bulk along with bunks and radio sets, signal equipment, weapons, and ammo, along with extra uniforms. The bunker on top of that had the space to fit three B-52s behind its blast doors. Well, finally that day came and in October of 2077 a small warhead went off not far from the Airbase, not actually striking the base due to faulty targeting data. The flight crew led by their leader nicknamed Buster fled to their bunker with the Express. Inside they were joined by three other crews plus some of the ground crews. When the blast doors shut the whole base was rocked by the blast of that nuke, sending a fireball out across the landscape. The crews all knew one another and quickly settled to the Panic room, while the ground crew made their own accommodations. Buster and his crew found the going quite easy for several weeks when things... began to change. It was small at first, a few bits of hair coming out in the showers or in their combs, this posed a serious problem to people like Goose who relied on their looks in life. Then its was skin, bits of it being shed until they woke up one day looking like walking medical diagrams, some weren't as unfortunate as Buster and his crew others died, albeit in agony but they still died those who remained were stuck in grotesque bodies they hardly recognized. Buster was the last remaining commanding officer when the ordeal ended, and he rallied the remaining bomber crews and Ground crews around him and opened up the blast doors. Venturing to the neighboring hangars they found many of their former compatriots still kicking, some old and shriveled, others frozen in time like they were in a "zombified body" they even found their commander. He rallied the survivors, armed them and led them to the ruins of what once was NYC, not knowing the year, date or time just hoping they could find somebody who was still left alive. They found out quickly from a merchant that it was 2237, almost 200 years since they took shelter. Many of the crews were shocked by this and yet surprised that the human race had survived what they thought would be the end of time. They ventured into the ruins even further and were unlucky enough to come upon the Estate of Lord John McReed, a man who viewed the ghouls as sub-human. When he saw the ghouls coming, he mustered his militia and laid an ambush for the ghouls, and when it was sprung the militia managed to kill six of the ghouls including the commander and several of Buster's old friends. The ghouls under Buster's leadership fled back to the air base and took shelter, many of them shocked by what had happened. He turned to the gathered group and proclaimed that all "Normals" were clearly corrupted by the wasteland and thus had become the source of evil in the wastes, it was their civic duty to wipe out the corrupted species and wipe the slate clean. The ghouls heartily agreed, Buster and his second: Goose founded the Bombardiers, ready to "fix" the wasteland through a second baptism of fire. Cracking the Sky Yet for the Bombardiers they were posed with the question, how to fix the wasteland. Would it be grueling street to street combat, where the casualties would be high, or maybe they would fix up some of the old planes and equipment in here and create an army of men armed with pre-war rifles and flying old bombers and fighters. They went for the second option. Buster eager to begin his dark crusade began repairs on his old bomber the Detroit Express. Soon the old tub was almost up and running, her hull and frame had been expertly pieced back together and with the use of welding torches and salvaging from other wrecks managed to give her, her old look back. However, it was her jet engines that proved the hardest to repair, a jet engine is an advanced piece of machinery and replacement parts in the post-apocalyptic wasteland are hard to come by, and if there was one thing SAC didn't put into their panic room supplies, that was replacement parts. So the Bombardiers began to scour the wasteland looking for the new parts. These showed themselves in the form of several crashed vertibirds. All of them had belonged to the Reclamation, and all had been shot down over the course of the fighting that currently ripped up the NYC wasteland. The Bombardiers had located them on a scouting mission sent out by Buster to find extra food rations, when word reached Buster and Goose he went out to the wrecks with their chief engineer and aircraft mechanic, Chief. He ripped the vertibird's engines apart and managed to pull together enough parts together to get a three of the engines up and running. But this wasn't nearly enough to actually have the bomber air mobile so they continued to scour the wasteland to no avail. At last, the Bombardiers gave up and just as it looked like the bomber would never fly again, Chief suggested they simply replace the jet engines with propeller driven ones. They promptly hunted down a couple old B-29s at a museum and removed the engines, and after making some minor repairs, they mounted them and soon enough the Detroit Express was once again flying. Their first flight was a test one with Goose, Buster, Enola (their female bombardier) and Oddball making up the skeleton crew for the flight and instead of bombs they were carrying bags of bricks mounted in the bomb bay. The Express spooled up its engines and charged down the runway, shuddering and shaking violently the bomber lifted off the ground and into the sky it circled the base three times as the ghouls on the ground began to cheer, their success. A week later the Principality woke up to see a massive B-52 dropping high explosive bombs on the Estate of John McReed, albeit the John wasn't injured many people were, and soon a search was made to discover where the bomber had come from, all searches showed up blank. Almost every day from here on in the B-52 showed up over the skies of New York, whether it was the colonies of the Federals, the battlements of the Principality, the war-torn chaos of the Bronx or the High-tech forts of the Reclamation and Lions of New York, the death toll rose and so did the hatred for the group who was responsible, and when the Bombardiers were found out a small army of angry people showed up outside their air base. What they were met by shocked the wasteland a third time, the ghouls who came to fight them had powerful firearms, a thick minefield and even suit of power armor made out of scrap metal they collected from around the base. The fighting began and ended rather quickly with the angry mob being chased off by the ghouls who celebrated their first victory over the "Pig Skins". After their great victory, the Bombardiers began to build up for the massive siege that was to come now that the nations of the wasteland new of their existence. The Bombardiers began to pour concrete, forming massive barricades from which they could defend the base from. Soon the bae was surrounded by a massive concrete wall, made not by the ghouls but by the human slaves they had. Most of the slaves were taken from the wasteland, from caravans, isolated homesteads, small villages and of course from the many slave trading rings that inhabited the city. Soon the nations of the wasteland began to raid the air base, the Federals deployed their Flying Corp in force, bombing, machine gunning the defenses and anyone caught in the open and yet the Bombardiers still managed to stick it out, repairing damages and filling in craters in record time. And every day the Detroit Express would roll out onto the runway and lift off to go plaster some unlucky spot in the wasteland with high explosives. Yet soon the Bombardiers began to face resistance in the air. The FRL Flying Corp would launch fighters and shoot up the B-52 and on more than one occasion kill a number of crewmen, the old air to air defenses mounted on the bomber weren't up and running, and those that were operational had to be manned by hand. Many ghouls lost their lives manning the machine guns aboard the'' Express'', but the Bombardiers stoically manned their stations fending off Biplanes from the FRL. For the Royals, this took some creativity, one of their helicopters couldn't get up to the speed or height it took to pursue the B-52 and could hardly hAd enough armaments to do anything more than scratch the paint. So the Royals invented the Pelican a bi-rotor helicopter capable of adjusting its rotor positions much like the VB-02 vertibirds. These were fitted with massive machine guns and sent after the Express, ''the ghouls now realizing their air superiority being seriously challenged decided to put their own aircraft into action, they plucked one of the old fighters from the hangars and had chief begin work on getting it back up and running. Chief had worked on a lot of aircraft, and this fighter was like child's play for him, having gone about the base and stripped the aging craft of spare parts for the ''Express ''he had a mountain of spare parts to repair the fighter with. The jet engine was quickly pieced back together and soon the ''Flying Tiger ''was airworthy again. The only person who actually remembered how to fly the fighter, however, was Zero-G, and he was soon doing round the clock missions against the Flying Corp and Royal Helicopters. Realising that if Zero-G was killed the bombardiers would be out of air support and out of a pilot, so Buster began lining up eligible recruits to practice and learn flying in the old sim-pods, lining the inside of one of the hangars. Yet due to power shortages the old pods could only be used for a half hour, one at a time to prevent the base's power grid from overloading. To add Buster soon had Chief working on fixing up another of the old fighters in preparation for receiving new recruits. It was around this time that the Bombardiers soon began to raid the many trade routes of the NYC, and with these raids they soon began to free up groups of ghouls held captive by traders or slavers using the routes soon, there were dozens of ghouls living on base with no reap purpose. Buster quickly realized all the dislike for humans could be rallied to make them turn on the "Pig-Skins" of the wasteland. Buster soon had the refugees organized into drilling companies and were soon drilling, doing firearms practice and training for war with humankind. Added onto the army of ghouls were a few Super Mutants, most of which came down from the Capital Wasteland trying to escape the Brotherhood. With all these new recruits the Bombardiers soon had a well trained and armed army to attack the Pig-Skins with. The Bombardiers soon had their army marching out the fort walls, when they first went into battle against the Royal Army, they met with disaster. The well trained and well-disciplined Royals had only a sparse 15 minutes to prepare their defenses when the Bombardier army showed up. The ghouls and Super Mutants who had been training for months for this exact moment suddenly found themselves being out-fought by their opponents who they had held in such disdain for the majority of their training. The ghouls and mutants rushed the Royal's positions and found themselves caught in interlocking fields of fire, surrounded by a dense minefield and with mortars and artillery raining down upon them. Yet the bombardiers proved to be tough and resilient people and pushed onward, suffering massive amounts of casualties in the process. After three hours of failing to take the Royal's position, the remnants fell back. This was a slap across the face for Buster and Goose, who thought their men would easily defeat the ignorant Pig-skins. Yet they neglected to remember that the Pigskin armies had been fighting each other and mutants like them for longer than their group had been around. Thus the remnants of the Bombardiers were brought back into the base, and they slowly began to rebuild their numbers. Mutants United It was around this time that another army of mutants arrived in the NYC area, an army of Super Mutants led by an old, tough and a surprisingly good tactician named Prometheus. Prometheus was considered a defect by his fellow Super Mutants as he was created with the ability to speak fluently and even have complex thoughts, something that most East Coast Super Mutants are lacking in. He came from Vault 87 after the Battle of Adams AFB and promptly took command of a group of Super Mutants who had become disillusioned with their current crusade to conquer the capital wasteland and turn everyone in it into a Super Mutant. After suffering so many defeats at the hands of the Brotherhood, they quickly took a liking to Prometheus, who led them out of them out of the Capital Wasteland, however not before attacking the Brotherhood camp at the White House Plaza as a parting gift to the Brotherhood. They arrived in the NYC wasteland several months later, having lost many and yet gained a few more. They proclaimed themselves the Army of the Righteous Goo and set about attacking the humanoid settlements throughout Manhattan and The Bronx. They soon came in contact with the Bombardiers and struck up an immediate alliance and agreed to work together, however not all within the Bombardiers were happy with this arrangement. One, in particular, was Nutjob, He had come from the West Coast where Super Mutants were less friendly towards Ghouls. That was putting it lightly, on the West coast Ghouls were used as servants, slaves, and other menial purposes, basically making them the mutants drones. Nutjob had been a part of an army out west led by someone named The Master and when the Master met his death, and the Super Mutant army dispersed he found himself finally released from servitude and with a deep seeded hatred for all Super Mutants. As he made his way east, he went out of his way to kill Super Mutants wherever they he found them until his capture by slavers near Cleveland. He languished in the slaver's camp for quite a long time, his hatred festering for both mutants and humans alike and when he and his fellow prisoners rose up against their captors, he personally stabbed the slaver's commander to death. He promptly made his way to NYC by following and raiding along the trade routes that led to the city. Upon his arrival, he joined up with the Bombardiers and got a position aboard the ''Detroit Express as a gunner. During his time as a gunner aboard the Express, he personally shot down sixteen FRL Biplanes and thirteen PoQ Pelicans. When not inside the bomber he was on the ground helping Chief strip down old fighters and bombers for parts, or he was actively trying to get Buster to ban all non-ghouls from their army. Yet when the Army of the Righteous Goo showed up in NYC with Prometheus, the old hatred began to re-surface. Yet when his demands for the banning of Super Mutants and his requests for attacks to commence on the Mutants were denied, he went over the edge. Buster realized Nutjob's failing mental status so he replaced him on the bomber crew, this could've been the worst thing he could've done. Nutjob in a fit of rage shot Buster dead in his office and hijacked the Detroit Express, ''crashing it into HQ of the Army of the Righteous Goo. Prometheus survived the suicide bombing but immediately cut off all relations with the Bombardiers and declared them the enemy of the Army of the Righteous Goo. Back at Mitchel AFB Goose had taken command of the Bombardiers as they mourned over the loss of their venerable leader. Yet more tragedy was to strike the Bombardiers when the Super Mutants they once thought were their allies suddenly began to attack them. Goose attempted to send messengers to Prometheus, but these men were all either killed or eaten by the mutants. Goose soon had to face the fact that his army was now going to have to fight the mutants along with humanity. Goose also realized their greatest asset was now destroyed so he had a chief immediately start building another bomber. Using the husk of ''Sally B, another B-52 posted on base and with a lot of help from his fellow ghouls Chief was able to get Sally B air capable, including all of her jet engines and commence bombing once again. For the Bombardiers, their struggle to destroy mankind would become a harder goal to reach. The air forces of the FRL and PoQ were able to respond to the bombings better, the bombardiers' once rigid policy of no humans allowed was violated on several occasions as arms dealers were allowed in to sell arms and ammo to the army, this being done rather discreetly naturally. The Bombardiers are still around, but they are a sad shadow of themselves. Assets and Technology ''The Detroit Express'' Yes, sir, this old bird has gotten more than its fair share of flight and combat roles in over the years. She was built in 1956 and was first deployed during the Vietnam War, dropping heavy ordinance of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. She was shot up by almost everything the Viet Cong and NVA could throw at her and yet she kept on flying strong, unless you count all the times she crash landed due to damage from AA fire. However, after the Vietnam war, she was taken under the wing of Strategic Air Command and posted to Mitchel Air Force Base as part of the US' second strike capability after the Soviet or Chinese had nuked the US. Just like us Americans we always get the last laugh no matter what. Anyway, she traded bomber crew after bomber crew over her stay at Mitchel, in 1991 she was deployed to the Middle East to support the liberation of Kuwait, this would be her final mission of her career before the nuclear apocalypse. The Express underwent several refittings, literally being stripped down to nothing bit the skeleton so that it could be updated completely but she stayed in service regardless o her age. However, in the 2050s she was cited for retiring yet with the situation in the Far East heating up she was kept in service and retrofitted yet again. When the nuclear apocalypse came she was pushed into one of the many hardened hangars and promptly fell into disrepair, she was eventually repaired back to working order by Chief. Yet in her Post-apocalyptic state, she was still in sad shape, her jet engines weren't all in working order with several being replaced by old prop-driven engines. Her once automated air to air defenses now had to be manned by gunners, and she was like a flying brick, a perfect target for AA gunners on the ground. To add the was pestered by every aircraft the FRL and PoQ could put up. Yet after several months of loyal service, The Express was destroyed when Nutjob crashed her into the HQ of the Army of the Righteous Goo. Now whatever parts of her could be recovered by the mutants have been used to reinforce the walls of their compound. ''Sally B'' This old bird was built in 1988 for the express purpose of making the Soviets quake in their boots. The bomber was for all intents and purposes never supposed to serve in combat roles yet in 1991 she was flown overseas to help with the Liberation of Kuwait and again in 2003 for the invasion of Iraq. Old Sally B also managed to get some service in Afghanistan helping to bomb the Taliban back to the stone age all throughout the US' time there (2001-2020). Yet it was when the times began heating up with the commies that she was based at Mitchel Air Force Base under the command of Strategic Air Command. She flew a lot of recon missions up to Greenland and back down to the very southern regions of Mexico. Yet when the bombs fell in 2077, she was pushed into a hangar and kept there along with her crew and ground crew. Yet as the days went on, food ran scarce, radiation began to leak in and eventually the crew either died of radiation poisoning, starvation or simply killing one another after losing their sanity. Chief eventually found Sally all rusted up and such, he stripped her of all useable parts, leaving her a skeleton with wings and wheels. Yet when the Detroit Express was destroyed Goose had Chief and his workers fix up Sally B to working order. In a feat that was a mix of luck and expert workmanship, Chief got Sally's jet engines up and running. All the jet engines, she now works as the Bombardier's main offensive weapon, yet most crewmen still miss the old Express when flying Sally. ''Flying Tiger'' This sleek, shiny and chromed fighter was once the pride of the US Air Force, being the pinnacle of fighter design it outperformed many of its foreign models in tests run. Yet the fighter was not meant to serve overseas. Apparently, its history had been plagued by misfortune and shame. Its very first pilot in 2270 got drunk after his girlfriend left him, he promptly attempted to fly the fighter off the base and crashed the thing into the runway. Its second pilot died in a mysterious aircraft fire, and its third pilot died when the engines failed, and his ejection seat failed to operate correctly. The aircraft was from that point considered bad luck by the squadron it was in and placed it into a hangar where it remained until the day some unlucky ghoul opened up the hangar it sat in and found a hardly used fighter. When Chief found the fighter he at first wanted to strip it down for parts, yet Buster ordered that the fighter be brought up to working order so that the Express ''could have an escort from their enemies fighter squadrons. The fighter was given what few repairs it needed and promptly given over to its pilot, Zero-G. he flew the Tiger like no other and claimed over thirty kills in her, yet one fateful day the ground control received a message that he had just been jumped by two FRL Biplanes and was promptly shot down. His last message was that his engines were failing. Culture The culture of the Bombardiers mostly revolves around the stories told by the old Air Force ghouls, stories of close calls, brutal air to air battles, and surmounting indomitable odds. These stories rapidly became a part of the oral history of the group, these brave men and their stories of heroism quickly got the best of most of the ghouls who quickly turned them into gods among mutants as they worshiped every facet of their being. Naturally, it was quite a kick to the throat for these folks when their so-called gods slowly began to be killed off in their violent crusade against humanity and Super mutants alike. Other than that the Bombardiers' world revolves around the teachings of the US Airforce with many books being old Air Force manuals, their clothing is often based off of flight jackets of the Second World War and its not uncommon to see a Bombardier grunt to charge into battle with a makeshift leather flight cap atop his head. The Bombardiers are taught reading and math from questions involving bomb payloads and survival equations, they are often taught to work on the old bombers and fighters as a hobby which many partake in. All in all the Bombardiers have trained their army of ghouls into a well oiled and loyal fighting machine not just through training but rigorous indoctrination. Relations If this really needs explaining to you people fine. The Bombardiers literally bombed or pissed off just about everyone in the NYC Wasteland so needless to say not too many folks like them. Notable Members Buster Buster was born in a small town in Indiana in 2050 to his two parents Julius and Ethel. Not much else is known about Buster's Childhood until he joined the Air Force in 2068 and promptly was sent into the bomber service here he met all the would-be founders of the Bombardiers and his future crewmates. He served with his bomber group for a time over the fiery battlefields of Alaska until his bomber was so badly shot up on a mission it was deemed unusable so he was reposted to Mitchel AFB and reassigned to the Strategic Air Command. There he came to command a bomber crew, yet his record of promotions end here. He stayed at this base doing occasional patrols up and down the East Coast looking for Chinese subs. When October 2077 came around he and his crew ducked into one of the hardened bunkers that held their beloved B-52 The Detriot Express they eventually emerged after enduring the enclosed confines of the bunker and under the leadership of Buster the now ghoulified survivors formed Buster's Bombardiers, he remained its commander and chief bomber pilot until his untimely death at the hands of Nutjob. Goose Goose was born on the east side of Cleveland in 2052. Like most kids his age, he was easily impressionable, and borderline retarded when making life choices. He joined up with gang after gang, ran drugs and fought anyone he thought he could take. It wasn't that he was a bad kid, he was just very misguided and needed some real role models other than the local thugs. This came in the form of his grandfather, an aged veteran of the Afghanistan conflict in the early 2000s and 2010s he had flown the massive B-52s blowing the piss out of the insurgents on the ground. Goose followed his grandfather's example and after High School, he joined the Air Force, he completed his training and was given his assignment as a co-pilot aboard a bomber, the ''Detriot Express he quickly became acquainted with the crew and served with them loyally. However all changed when the nukes started flying, he and the rest of his crew ducked into the hardened bunker, ghoulified and then promptly emerged from their shelters. When Buster ordered the crusade against human kind to begin he was placed as the co-pilot onboard the Express and promptly flew several missions over NYC. This remained his role until Buster was killed by Nutjob, distraught he tried to keep the Bombardiers together but instead found that he had lost the faith of many of Buster followers, they scattered to the winds leaving only a few left for him to command and even then that number dwindles every day. Quotes By About Category:Groups Category:New York